


High Enough

by mescribble



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angry Castiel/Dean Winchester, Angry Dean Winchester, Angsty Dean, Bromance, Castiel Deals With Human Emotions, First Kiss, Gen, Humour, Love, M/M, Mediator Sam Winchester, POV Dean Winchester, Protective Dean Winchester, Regretful Dean, Romance, Self-Conscious Dean, UST
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-09-28 13:19:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10102544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mescribble/pseuds/mescribble
Summary: Set Post-S12 - sometime in the nearish future. After an impromptu, and very much on-the-job, first kiss between Cas and Dean, their relationship slowly begins to unravel, revealing all those underlying emotions and the question is how exactly they're supposed to deal with it. Slow burn with focus on the frustrating and slightly angsty UST we're being fed by the show at the moment. (Sorry about that) I hope all the sub I've put into the text will make the read worth-while! Be lovely to have you.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello you lovelies -
> 
> First off, clearly I'm a newbie to this fandom. Wow, I haven't been one of those in years! Quite exciting, actually, and a little daunting. I hope you'll enjoy what I have to offer. 
> 
> I've loved Supernatural for a long time, though I came into it late in the game - binge watching S1-S6 over a week spent coughing in bed. I saw the connection between Dean and Castiel as something absolutely delightful when they began to build it in S5-S6 and was blown away by the fact that it seemed they were actually going to take Dean, the dude's dude of all dudes that ever did dude, and translate his dudeishness into something that didn't plaster a chick in front of it. 
> 
> His character journey is one of the most amazing ones to ever grace the screens of television and Jensen Ackles is a demigod of Acting that is to be bowed down to, and, naturally, Misha Collins sits alongside him. What they bring to this relationship, the subtleties that build it in each episode, is - and I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I need to state it - inspiring. It's inspiring to the point of me writing this fanfic to get them the hell out of my head. 
> 
> I am so very curious, now that I'm going to share this with you, to hear what you think. Reading comments (granted, they would preferably be positive reactions) give an author the opportunity to grow wings and take flight, so **if you could take a minute and leave your thoughts for me** , if you end up finishing this first chapter, I will clap my hands and click my heels and move my fingers double-speed to type up the second chapter. 
> 
> **Feed my muse, is what I'm asking. Please. She gets so grumpy.**
> 
> If you disliked the chapter, I'd be sincerely interested in constructive criticism. Please, no flames, though - writers scar easily. If I make you angry or you take offence at anything I've put down purely in search of your entertainment, write me a PM and I will respond asap.
> 
> So, after that very wordy intro: here's the first chapter. I hope you enjoy it and want to see where it goes next.
> 
> All my love!

****

1.

The pillar of light shoots straight up into the sky. It’s a soft, slow swirling of white and pale green, beautiful, except for the very real threat hiding in that peaceful movement: all the souls of Hell, tortured, insane, blood thirsty, wanting release. Their yearning for it is like a dull pulse through the air. The woods surrounding the clearing has gone quiet, holding its breath in horrified anticipation. 

And at the centre of it all, surrounded by thick walls of light, haloed by the brightness of this impending disaster, stands the cause.

“Cas!” I shout, louder than the first few times I’ve tried it, getting nothing for the effort, only there’s a tug, like something irresistible, making me take a step forward.

“Dean. He can’t hear you,” Sam says for a second time, grabbing my arm to stop my movement, steadying me, as he always does, but the desperation that begins to claw through my chest is unbearable, lanced through with guilty regret, because I’m the reason Cas is even there, I’m the reason he came to these damned woods in the first place. 

I just didn’t know that it would result in this. 

How could I have known when a lying, two-faced, son-of-a-bitch seraph, with what must be a serious grudge against the whole of humanity, told me this was the only way to stop the second coming of Christ? All the backstory he gave us for exactly how the arrival of God’s son will end us all was convincing - Cas even confirmed all of his claims as accurate -and let’s be perfectly clear: the Bible version paints a pretty picture.

All the signs were right there. For months we’ve collected them, traced them, like a treasure hunt gone wrong and bloody and deadly, looking for the hidden X marking the spot where Christ himself would supposedly appear. Only, as Barael told us, the Great Healer isn’t scheduled for a comeback tour just yet, not by a long shot, and the end of time coming early doesn’t exactly tickle anyone, not even Heaven, so we were told that we were to stop it, stop whoever or whatever was at the root of it. Or, that's what Barael convinced us of. All of it lies. 

Cas suspected it from the start, questioned it, questioned the angel he thought of as a stranger, someone who had been promoted up the ranks long after Castiel stopped visiting Heaven on a regular basis. And Cas questioned me, and I fought him every step of the way, feeling he was being overly cautious after everything that went down last year, asking him to, please, understand that we can’t chance the End of Days on him having a hunch. And when he had to admit to his own investigation not yielding him any proof that Barael’s claims were false, he went here in spite of his suspicions, because he trusted me, trusted I was right when I told him to.

And now he’s stuck, and soon he’ll be gone.

Because instead of a stairway to Heaven appearing, there's a ladder from Hell. And it wouldn’t be here if not for Castiel, and his link to the souls of the damned. They have been inside of him, lived in him, powered him, not too long ago, and, turns out, this link is instrumental to them ever gaining access to his angelic powers. Now, with him in this clearing, on this exact night at this exact time, they’re able to draw on those cosmic powers and slowly they’re twisting the key in the lock of these particular side gates of Hell.

And I told him to go with Barael, told him to let Barael zap him here ahead of us, that we’d follow, be right on his heels, that we had his back.

This life has taught me nothing. Nothing at all.

“Oh, Feathers,” Crowley murmurs to my right, staring large-eyed at the spectacle. “The things you do…”

“How do we stop it?” I demand, turning to the demon, who raises his shoulders with a shake of his head. “ _How the hell do we stop it?_ ” I exclaim, rounding on Crowley with no little amount of threat, barely getting an eyebrow raise for the effort.

“You think I want to lose all the souls I’ve broken my back collecting? All those new demons cooking? If I knew how to stop it - I’d tell you,” Crowley replies, turning his eyes back on the light show. “It’s too late now,” he adds and I look back at the barely visible form of the angel. 

There’s a slight pause. I feel Sam tensing beside me, like a bowstring, his rigidity beginning to unsettle me. I know he’s giving up. We are not giving up.

“Do you ever feel half the time you’re just cleaning up your own mess?” Crowley drawls and I ponder hitting him across the jaw, but decide to save the energy and the time and give it to Cas instead. 

“If we could get him out of there…” I begin.

“You do that now it’s started, with all that power down there, and you risk creating a seismic reaction that’ll have half the east coast sinking into the Atlantic,” Crowley returns. “Very bad idea.”

Hitting him is starting to feel extremely necessary, but I reign the impulse, eyes drifting up, up, following the pillar into the sky. It’s growing taller by the minute, a tunnel between the deeper dimension and ours, set to spit out destruction and total devastation. According to Crowley the amount of damned souls about to be released will most probably generate enough pain and suffering that the madness of Hell would be infused in half the human race and there’d be no cure for it. 

So, I guess, at least the stakes are of the good old reliable kind.

“Sam?” I say, looking to him, as ever, for answers.

“I’m not sure,” Sam replies, brow deeply furrowed. “All the book said was something about devotion. An act of devotion. But it didn’t say how or even if it’ll stop it or what sort of act is needed.”

“A sacrifice?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Sam repeats.

No time. Barely even time to think now. We realised what it was too late, but it’s not too late to stop it. It’s not. I know there’s some way. There has to be a way. And now the tug is there again, like someone pulling on a line hooked into my chest, bidding me to move forward. 

Move.

Now. 

“I know what to do,” I tell Sam, and then I start running.

This is right. I’m right. And I have to sprint because there’s no time.

I know Sam’s following me. I can hear him calling my name, calling for me to stop, but even though his is the voice of reason, because I’ve no clue whether this is really right, all I have is this conviction in my chest and I have to listen to it. I have to take it on good faith that there’s a reason I’m doing this. I can reach Cas. I can talk him down, break the link, wake him up, bring him back - I know it. And then I’ll twist the key in the lock and goddamn break it off for good. So I’m obeying the tug, and whoever is on the other end of it. I’ll not ask questions. Whatever is guiding me, I know it’s bigger than me, it has stakes in this too: it doesn’t want the world to suffer.

And if what we’ve read about this particular jailbreak is true - and all evidence points to it - Cas is in serious trouble. It’s not just his celestial energy that’s draining from him, it’s everything. It’s his soul. If he has a soul. It’s everything that makes him him. Every memory, every thought, every movement of his life. If I don’t do this, if I can’t make him hear me, there’s no coming back for him. He’ll not even be for the Empty. He’ll be wiped clean from existence. There’ll be no trace of him left. Everything that makes him Cas will be sacrificed for this violent stupidity and I won’t allow it. He’s too good for that. He’s too good for it to end like this. 

It won’t end like this.

There’s frost in the tall grass beneath my feet; bathed in the light it glitters, creating a strange effect, giving the impression I’m actually running on top of brittle waves and I feel like I’m drowning, that dull pulse from the towering pillar pounding its way into me, stronger for every step closer to it that I get. I put a hand up to shield my eyes as I near the outer rim of light, the pulse like a living thing. For a second I’m afraid I won’t get access, that I won’t be able to get through at all, that this beating heart of all the lost souls, filled with their eternal hunger for freedom, will banish me - but there’s nothing stopping me, no forcefield giving way, no heat or cold. There’s just light. Only, Sam isn’t behind me anymore and when I slow, turning around to check on him, I can see he’s stopped just outside, his shape a dark green shadow. He can’t follow.

It’ll be fine, I want to tell him. Don’t worry. We’ve been through worse. Much worse.

I turn to Cas, still obscured by the pale green light, its brightness making me have to squint, but slowly my eyes begin to adjust, focussing on him. His back is to me, trench coat not moving, there’s no breeze, no flow of air, even with the movement all around us, the walls resembling a slow, rippling river, encircling us. Something about it is deceptively calming. I look up and can’t see the night sky - the pillar is too high. 

For a few seconds I want to lie down, lie on my back and stare upwards, let the pillar surround me with its quiet stillness, let it sink into me, take hold. It would pull at my soul, it would make it join its gentle dance, forgetting the world. And that thought snaps me out of it, my eyes still resting on the back of Cas’ head. I’m not here to die. And neither is he.

“Cas?” I try, hesitantly approaching him.

He doesn’t move, or respond in any way, and I slowly walk around him until I’m facing him. I clench my jaws together tightly at his unseeing stare. His face is deathly pale and I can see thin veins beneath his skin. I can see them because his skin is turning translucent. The realisation jars in my head because I did this. I did this to him.

“Cas?” I repeat. 

Nothing.

“Castiel,” I say his full name, hoping it’ll jog something else, something ancient and winged and impossible to ever understand, make it shake this spell off like it’s nothing, like he’s done so many other times. “Listen to me,” I continue. “You need to snap out of it, buddy. Okay? Hey,” I say, reaching out a hand and placing it on his shoulder, searching for eye contact and getting nothing. Still nothing. “I’m here. It was a dick move sending you on your own, but, you know— usually not a problem for you. …Not that you’re good with moving dicks…”

I trail off like the complete moron that I am, wiping the smile off, as well as the hope that the humour would be enough. That there at least would be some slight spark, a tiny recognition of the joke, a need to retort, something. There’s nothing. And worse - I can feel how cold he is, even through the trench coat.

I move my hand to the side of his face and take a step back in shock when I’m not touching skin, but something harder, unyielding. Like he’s solidifying. Like he’s turning to stone.

“Okay, Cas,” I say, the looming catastrophe beginning to make it hard to breathe. He’s dying. He’s really dying. “Cas,” I repeat his name. “Listen. You can fight this, do you hear me? You can stop them. I _know_ you can. So do it - kick their asses - _now_!” I yell the last at him, beginning to lose it, the despair like a cold hand raking through my stomach, making me feel sick. “ _Castiel_!” I exclaim, grabbing hold of his trench coat, wanting to shake him out of it. “Goddamnit! We’re _not_ losing you!” Tears are stinging my eyes suddenly, because the despair is giving way to defeat, deep and thunderous, and with it stalks a heated guilt that makes me almost choke. “…I can’t…”

Crowley was right: it’s too late. Too late for sacrifices. We’re going to lose him this time and this time it’ll be for good. There’s no coming back for him. Not ever. This is it.

Then I feel it, a malevolent current in the air that wasn’t perceptible before, wafting off the trapped souls like a bad breath: their hatred and their self-pity. And I suddenly know why I’m here. Why I was allowed access. I know it. The next thought that comes into my head makes me pause because it’s so crystal clear it seems surreal, like it doesn’t really belong to me, like I’m listening to a recording of it. But I know, without a doubt, that whatever is being done to him, the damned are doing it by stealing his loyalty, his bravery, his compassion, every last ounce of love in him. The stuff they don’t possess anymore, the stuff of life and hope and trust. Without it they can’t break through a door that was made in Heaven, made with all those fiercely good things that they have no memory of, no access to if not by leeching it out of him. And I know how I can make it flow back to him. And I don’t hesitate. 

I move my head forward and I kiss him.

It’s like locking lips with a marble statue and all I can do is pray. I pray to him to please, for the love of Chuck, make this not be for nothing. 

I have one hand gripping the lapel of his coat, but my other hovers at my side, a foot parting us, and, for no particular reason, this feels important. Even right. The right thing, that we’re not closer together than necessary. 

I wait what feels like an eternity before there is even the slightest change, but then it comes, his lips turning supple against mine, the rigidity seeping out of him as the warmth seeps back in and he begins to feel human. There’s a soft sway where before he felt like he’d been literally planted to the grass and dirt beneath our feet. 

Then he drags a breath in through his nose and his hands move to the sides of my face and my heart picks up its pace as there’s response now and a strange, unplanned proximity. I’m kissing Cas. And I’m suddenly aware of kissing Cas. He wasn’t meant to actually be conscious, which sounds wrong, but is the truth. My head is a blank, filled with static - and I think it might be the hiss of the angel radio - and in a blink I’m connected to everything but myself, growing light headed, and I can _feel_ the Earth, the chill of snow on mountaintops, the saltiness of oceans, hear the echo of countries I’ve never even seen, scent them in the air, and then I’m in the sky, I’m in the blackness of space, feeling the heat of the stars on my skin, and then I’m within him, with his memories. Of me. Of me in Hell, tortured. And I feel how - behind his need for following orders telling him to raise me out of there - there was a quiet, private, unidentified fascination; and then his hand is burning its print into my skin and there’s a searing pain in the effort it took from him and it’s enough to send me, with a jolt, back into my own mind.

I break the kiss, letting him go as I step back. I can’t look at him. I can’t, not while trying to remember where I am, why I was ever kissing him in the first place, because the details are hazy and confusing to me and I thought I had good reason and then I remember running away from Sam, and Sam’s there, next to us, checking on us both, wide-eyed but smiling because we did it and I tilt my head back to look up at the star-speckled sky, framed by gently swaying shadowy treetops - no more pillar, no more damnation - and I enjoy the chill in the autumn air, its cooling effect on my overheated skin, and I close my eyes for a moment, letting it sink in that I did the right thing, made the right decision, and it saved him and he’s still here and that’s all that matters, so I open my eyes and turn, heading back up the small slope, out of the clearing, to a waiting Crowley. 

And to the safe familiarity of Baby, parked just beyond the trees.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dears!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who commented on Chapter 1. You taking the time to give such brilliant feedback is greatly appreciated! I was sorry not to be able to deliver this chapter sooner - especially when you all left me such amazing support and encouragement - but life got, you know, in the way and so there it is. 
> 
> I'm taking liberties in this chapter, but please do know that this story is completely non-canon, there are no spoilers in here, I know nothing of what's going down in S12, only what I think could go down and, of course, what I hope goes down. Disclaimer, disclaimer, I've made it all up so on my head be it. 
> 
> I'm so, so, so curious to hear what you think of this chapter, if you're enjoying the tale I'm spinning, if something's missing to you, or if it hits that sweet spot - as with every chapter I'll be posting I hope to hear from you and engage with you all. That's the best part about posting online. My muse needs fodder. _**So let me have it.**_
> 
> :) 
> 
> Hope you're all having a fabulous day (or night)!  
> xxx

_Castiel_

_Seven months and two days ago, Mary Winchester died in a blaze of angel fire. I tried everything in my power to resurrect her, but she was already lost in her own Heaven - she wouldn’t take my hand and return with me to her sons. During the whole time since her passing, their pain has been my pain and I have shared in their loss, because, as she was theirs, so she was mine. She showed me compassion and trust in ways not many had before her, ways in which her eldest son has been incapable of ever since I failed to bring her back to him._

_I understand his anger. His frustration. He carries it almost as a distinction at this point, refusing to let it subside. He thinks I don’t know, that I’m unaware of how he blames himself for her death, but of course I know. There’s no one he’s ever harder on than himself. I’ve tried to convince him, and so has Sam, that it wasn’t his choice to make, but he won’t listen to either of us, especially not to me. Not now and, possibly, not ever again, because his mother died to save me._

_If she hadn’t intervened, having learned of the real intentions harboured by the Men of Letters, I would have been banished from Earth forever._

_She made the choice to stop the chain of events because she had been aiding the Men of Letters for too long and, without her, they wouldn’t have gotten as far as they did, as close as they did, to carrying out their cleansing of the supernatural elements from every corner of the planet, and shutting the Gates of both Heaven and Hell for good. She made the choice because of her own actions, because she believed, with all her heart, that it was the right thing to do, and because she would never willingly let an innocent suffer due to a miscalculation on her part._

_She stepped into that angel fire with me, and before she pushed me out of it, using every morsel of strength in her huntress body, she told me to tell Dean two words: Be happy._

_They were a mother’s plea for forgiveness, for acceptance, that this was something she had to do. It was her way of asking him not to do what he always does and instead let her go, leave her be at peace. These sentiments were revealed to me when I finally located her Heaven and found her in the garden of the house where she lived with her husband and children. This was where they were a family and where no demons had yet come to haunt them. Happiness roamed freely here. The lawn was a deep green, the flowers in late-summer bloom, and the laughter of a four year old boy came from somewhere beyond a hedge. I almost went to seek him, but refrained - I was already trespassing as it was._

_Mary didn’t mind me there, because she remembered. She said she had chosen to remember me and them and everything we had been through, but she wasn’t coming back this time. She would wait, patiently, and see us in what she hoped would feel like a very long time._

_She corrected my tie with a mother’s gentleness - one that felt foreign to me, and yet very comforting - before she kissed my cheek and sent me on my way._

_Back to her sons._

_Back to Dean, who looked as though I’d physically injured him when I told him of her final encouragement. To be happy? His expression was thoughtful and then it filled with a sadness I wish I had never had to witness on his face, before there was nothing more, and he folded himself away from me. And that’s where he’s stayed for half of a year: folded away behind a wall so thick he’s barely even been able to hear me at times, refusing my counsel, firmly and unwaveringly. He’s made me angrier over the last six months than I’ve ever been with him, but he’s responded with a coolness that’s put a dent inside me. I can’t ignore it, or deny it. His non-responsiveness is more cutting than any of his previous moods. He barely even looks at me anymore._

_So when he tells me to go with Barael - whose entire being appears blackened, as though he’s rolled around in soot and ash and the stains refuse to come out - I don’t refuse him, I don’t question him or even hesitate to follow his order. Because it’s clearly an order. They’re all issued lately almost as a petty challenge to see whether I’ll follow or rebel. I will not rebel. My need for rebellion has left me as I want him to trust in me again, to know that if he asks something of me, I will give it without hesitation._

_If he hasn’t seen it yet, if he’s failed to, after everything I’ve done for his sake, grasp at my dedication, he should see now, grasp it now, that I, like Mary, believe in the fight we’ve aligned ourselves with. I believe in it as much as I ever have, and, more than anything, I believe in him. I will be by his side, and make it up as we go, even when he’s making decisions that aggravate and perplex me, even when I can’t stay quiet and have to question him. I will follow him anywhere and, yes, I will lead wherever he needs me to. And so I go with Barael._

_The clearing is pitch black when we arrive. My wings clipped, Barael has had to get me here, his touch an unwelcome one, and now he let’s go of my shoulder. Even before I see the smirk on his mouth, the satisfaction in his eyes, I know that I’ve been right about him all along and that, in coming here, I’ve sealed my fate. He has me right where he wants me. And slowly, steadily, the universe begins to sing in my ears. It sings of damnation. I’ve heard the song before - when the souls of Hell filled my chest with their terror, their sorrow, their faithlessness. I understand perfectly what is about to happen, why I, of all beings in creation, am here at this moment in time._

_You will die, the air and the earth and the oceans and the stardust dancing across the firmament are telling me. You will seize._

_And for the first time I think that yes, so it is and so it shall be and so it was always meant to end. Now. Here. Come full circle with the mistakes of the past I am finally forced to understand that the only greater purpose I could ever hope to serve is that of lost causes._

_I am a lost cause._

_An angel who went astray long ago and who will never find his way home, because he was never meant to._

_This is what I truly am. I am the harbinger of suffering. I abandoned what once kept me in line, I turned my back on all that had come before and I became this. Nothing more. I have tried too hard to mould myself into something that might fit on Earth. I could never fit here, no more than I could ever fit in Heaven now, no more than I would wish to fit in Hell. I am cast out. I belong to nothing because I am not fit to belong to anyone. I am a half-creature. I don’t know what I ever thought I was meant to be, or what I thought I could become, that wasn’t an abomination to all who come into contact with it._

_Oblivion._

_There’s a new sensation icing itself along my fingertips, calcifying itself through my veins, slowing down my blood and my heart and beginning to drain away my energy and there’s a promise in it of just that: oblivion._

_Barael is laughing at me, but Hell is surrounding me now, growing like a cancer throughout me now, lapping at my insides, tugging at my guts and my grace, and Heaven is far away. Then the laughter is gone. He’s gone. I’m alone in blinding light, a pillar growing ever higher, surrounding me, inching its walls away from me with every new breath I take, until its base is as big and wide as the scrapyard behind Bobby’s…_

_…fragment… of a thought… of a memory…_

_…of Dean…_

_Dean._

_Dean Winchester and his challenging, chastising, infuriating humanity. His need for freedom that was like being hit by a bolt of lightening every time I was near him, spreading it’s electricity through me, drawing me in, until I found it hard to be without it, until I began to want it for myself - this force of nature that he produced simply be believing in something with everything he had within him. I thought I had experienced that. I thought I knew what my fight was and where it lay, but I was wrong. Until I fought beside him I’d never understood the true value of victory, because life was an abstract notion before I met him. And so was love._

_This love. This startling, unbidden, overpowering love. I couldn’t see it for what it was for so very long, thinking it was what he told me it was, what he professed over and over it was - a family tie. How could I interpret something I’d never felt before? I couldn’t. I took his word for it, I followed his lead. Until I found myself in that cage with the Devil, and I said yes to becoming Lucifer’s vessel. I realised then that I would never get to say goodbye to the one person occupying my mind in that moment and, suddenly, I felt it - like the snapping of a wire inside me: the truth of my unwavering loyalty to this one man._

_…everything you’ve ever done…_

_Yes. Of course. Everything._

_And there it is - there it comes - with that statement - the need to question myself. What is this? Now. Here. What am I doing? And I know what’s happening to me, what’s really happening to me, is toxic. They’re poisoning my mind. The damned have filled me with their despair and I’ve given into them. How can I ever give into them? I have to fight it._

_I have to remember._

_Mary’s lips brushing my cheek. Her hands firmly correcting my tie._

_…affection…_

_Sam sorting through feathers for a new spell, holding one up, quizzing me - throwing his head back with a laugh when I not only answer correctly, but can tell him the continued happy life of the very bird it came from._

_…friendship…_

_Dean wrapping me in a blanket, handing me my trench coat… correcting my tie… pulling me along, laughing uncontrollably, rolling his eyes at me, glaring in utter disrespect, looking slightly afraid, worried, concerned, angry, annoyed, pissed off, his hands on either side of my face, his hands supporting me, guiding me, stopping me, ushering me, his fist against my face, and again, my fist against his cheekbone, I want him to hurt like I’m hurting, then regret, then forgiveness, appreciation, friendship, brotherhood, a bond stronger than any I’ve ever experienced before and I will die for him again and again because I love him._

_…love…_

_I have to remember._

_And I think I can hear him speak my name. Over and over I hear him speak my name. I think I can feel his touch on my face. And I think he’s come to save me because I can’t save myself, I can’t break free on my own, not this time. I’m fading. Everything is fading. But I hold onto him. I hold on because of him. All of it because of him. And I want to breathe again. And I want to feel and long and hope and remember. I have to remember, or they will win and I will give up and give in and be lost. I’ll be truly lost. And now there’s warmth in my veins again. Blood in my arteries. Flowing again. Everything is coming back into focus and I begin to feel again and for a moment I’m confused because what I’m feeling doesn’t make sense. Until it does. Because his mouth is on mine._

_I react without thinking, breathing in, as I can breathe again, and because my heart is behaving oddly, skipping beats, and I move my hands to either side of his face as I return the kiss. His thoughts are my thoughts and his emotions are interlacing with mine and it’s dizzying to see myself through his eyes, because there’s awe there, and an unfathomable curiosity and respect and understanding and impatience. Impatience with my un-humanity, my stubbornness, my ignorance. And there’s more. There’s more beneath the more beneath the more and then he pulls away. He pulls away like there’s a fist closing itself in his chest. He doesn’t look at me._

_He can’t look at me._

_I’m trembling and startled and, for one brilliant moment delirious, until the truth of it hits me. The real truth, no matter what I glimpsed in him, is that he will never admit to it. The fist is there for a reason._

_And when he turns from me, when he starts to walk away from me, my eyes linger on his back, my entire body still tingling, still finding its equilibrium, its way back from that oblivion, and still I feel like I’m being put together all wrong. I feel askew. Perhaps it’s because whatever hope I’ve stupidly held onto is seeping out of me now, watching him remove himself from me, and the sudden, searing ache that comes in the wake of it is a new sensation entirely. With it comes the impulse to go after him, speak my mind for the first time in months, tell him he’s wrong about all of it. He’s always been wrong, from the moment we first spoke, he’s been wrong in thinking himself undeserving, unredeemable, hell-bound. After everything, he still doesn’t know. After everything he will still revert to established patterns, thinking that’s the only way to stay sane. So how can I speak my mind without breaking, for good, this that has rested between us, unspoken and reassuring, from the start?_

_I can’t. And so, I don’t._


End file.
